Travel question about T-giving

kmjg2000

10-Year Member
5-Year Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
84
Happy Holiday Weekend!

As I watch the changing weather on the east coast the west coaster in me has a question.

If a mid flies home for T-giving what happens if the weather delays the flight back to USNA?

When I went on my visit to USNA earlier this fall a few of the mids said if you lived on the west coast you might not go home....
 
Midshipmen are required to know the Midshipman Regulations as it relates to holiday travel and leave. They know when they have to be back, and if traveling by air, their NLT time for their flight to land. If a midshipman has taken all appropriate actions, and if mother nature interferes, the midshipman will be excusably late. Poor planning, missing planes or other self-generated problems won't cut it.
Some West Coasters don't go home -- too expensive and too short a trip when they know they'll be home for holidays a few weeks later. At this point in life, many head for friends' or lovelife's homes closer to Annapolis.
 
Midshipmen are supposed to plan their air/land travel so that they are back BWI/Annapolis 4 hours before report time. This year Thanksgiving leave expires at 1800 (6pm)Sunday so you need to plan on landing by 2pm - makes it very difficult coming in from the west coast.
 
I defer to those currently at USNA for the current rules. However, one thing you learn in the military is to plan for the unexpected. Thus, many mids and, later, officers, plan to arrive back from leave many hours or even days early, especially if traveling long distances or during times of typical bad weather.

During my time in the military, you got in big trouble if you missed movement, deployment, etc. They might cut you some slack if the reason was totally beyond your reasonable ability to preduct and/or account for. To take an example from today, if you were traveling in Thailand, planned to arrive back two days prior to your planned deployment/commitment, and were stuck in Thailand by the airport protestors, ok. Reason: planning to return from overseas 2 days early demonstrated that you planned for the "reasonably unexpected" and protestors blocking the airports for over a week was beyond your ability to preduct or account for. However, if you flew to CA and planned to arrive back at BWI at 3 pm when holiday leave expires at 6 pm, you'd be in trouble. Reason: you should have expected that there might be bad weather, crowds, traffic, etc. and only gave yourself a 2 hr cushion while coming 2,500 miles.

Proper prior planning prevents poor performance. Words to live by.:thumb:

However, as noted, not sure what policy is today.
 
Prof2 above is correct. For current mids, they are expected to make plans such that they arrive back 4 hours prior. That is considered a reasonable effort in the event unforseen weather or similar situations beyond their control impacts air travel.
 
Back
Top